


Prometheus of Broken Hearts

by AwkwardFortuna



Series: Lovers Left Behind [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Action, Aging, Andy is aging, Angst, Body Horror, Booker/Copley, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Human Trafficking Mention, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Jealousy, M/M, Mild Gore, Quynh wants revenge, Quynh | Noriko-centric, Quynh's return, Revenge but not really, Romance, briefly, or she thinks she does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25621177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardFortuna/pseuds/AwkwardFortuna
Summary: It gets old quickly; the waking up, the screaming with no air, the drowning and the dying of it all. Lather, rinse, repeat.Or,Booker enlists the help of Copley in order to find Quynh but it turns out that they don't have to look far, Quynh has already found them.(P.S You don't have to read the 1st part to read this one. Just know that Booker/Copley is a thing.)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Background Joe/Yusuf, Booker | Sebastian le Livre/James Copley, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Lovers Left Behind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857220
Comments: 19
Kudos: 144





	1. The Gun

_It gets old quickly; the waking up, the screaming with no air, the drowning, and the dying of it all. Lather, rinse, repeat._

_It's an old hat, like a dance Quynh has done a thousand times and mistakingly, in her madness, she wishes for change...It is granted._

_Her body begins to prune, the salt of the sea taking away her oils and the elasticity of her skin, her fingerprints too. It is all gone as her flesh turns to mush, peeling off in strips of skin as wet and as soft as tissue paper._

_Fish swim by to feast on her like vultures around a carcass. She screams but there is no air. She screams and no one can hear her and she cries, boy does she cry, but there are no tears in the ocean and the bottom feeders feast off of her regardless of her agony. Why wouldn't they? She is a carcass that will never run out of meat. She is a carcass that will never run out of meat. She is a carcass that will-_

_Lather,_

_rinse,_

_repeat._

*

Booker learns that when Copley gets started on a project, it quickly consumes him.

He’s like a madman, drawing conclusions with little red pieces of string leading from one old document to another. He’s obsessed, lit up by the flames of curiosity and Booker is pretty sure that if it weren’t for him, Copley would never leave his office. He'd probably starve to death if it weren't for the meals Booker makes for him and isn’t that funny? Booker caring for someone? _Tending_ to someone? Making sure that while Copley toes the edge of a cliff he never actually goes over it? Who knew that one day Booker would be the responsible one? 

“Look, right here, in this journal a fisherman’s son says that his father came home one day with stories of a witch in the water!”

Booker hums noncommittally. They've been through this before, Copley finds countless stories of witches and women in the ocean but none of them hold any merit. None of them are _solid._ Documents from that era are hard to come across as most things were told by word of mouth. Not many people could read, let alone write back then, especially fishermen and their sons. But still, Copley is hopeful, and he is trying his best to do something _good_ for Andromache after all of the hurt that he and Booker have caused.

"When was the last time you slept?" 

Copley's eyes are red from staring at computer screens all day and night. He's got dark circles under his eyes and Booker feels tired just looking at him.

"Never mind that, look!" He shoves the black and white photocopy of a notebook towards Booker, it is something written in old English on the tattered pages of a book. 

Booker squints while he studies it. The dates certainly match up, but the geography? He can’t be sure.

“James..." he says cautiously. "That’s great, but I think you need to-“

Copley holds up the universal ‘one-moment’ sign and drops to his knees, sifting through piles upon piles of paper and journal articles that have somehow made homes for themselves on the floor of his office. Booker has to step over knee-high piles just to step closer and take a look over his boyfriend's shoulder.

“Ah! Here! I have all of the shipping routes and sea voyages his father took!" He's holding a tattered notebook in hand. "One of their routes was taken near where it happened! It’s not exactly the correct spot but it’s a start, don't you think?”

He can't help but smile at James and his enthusiasm. Before, Booker hardly ever smiled and now he feels as though he's doing it constantly. His face is bound to get sore from it.

"I think you're a genius, and if you think that it's a start, it's a start." Booker leans down to kiss him, a gentle peck that he fully intends to use as a way to maneuver him towards the bedroom to trick the man into sleeping.

Except, Copley breaks the kiss with a fond smile and says "One second, I just need to check one more thing!" before returning to his pile of papers.

Looking over the mess of his office, it is no wonder how Copley found them.

*

_Sometimes, her mind drifts from her body and she sees herself as a bloated, haggard, corpse._

_On other days when she is drifting, she sees land and dirt, blue skies full of clouds that are full of air. Her lungs spasm with the memory of it and how it feels to breathe and have that same breath stolen in a way that doesn't hurt. In a way that feels sweet, like the gentle gasps breathed between open-mouthed kisses._

_Sometimes she sees Andromache. Sometimes she sees Nicolo and Yusuf._

_But most of the time, she just sees herself. Bloated and green with moss. Skin so soft that it is peeling off of the bone._

*

The odd thing about Andy’s loss of immortality is that she is beginning to age.

It was subtle at first, a creased smile line, twinkling eyes that gave way to crow’s feet. She tells them all not to worry but Booker loses sleep over the idea that one day, Andromache will leave them all. He is thankful now more than ever that his banishment has been lifted. He gets to see Andromache as often as he wishes to, but Yusuf still demands that he be excluded from group missions and somehow that feels worse than banishment ever did. If something were to happen to Andy while he wasn't there to help her he would burn their enemies to the ground...But first, he would start with Yusuf.

"So, what have you got for me?" Andy asks Copley while giving Booker a wink.

"Kidnapping." 

"Yikes."

"Of the Prime Minister's daughter."

"Don't they have special agents for that?"

"They do, but those special agents have been paid off. Politics, you know?"

"We don't get involved with politics."

"I know, I know. But you'll want to get involved with this, look," Copley hands Andy a file as thick as Booker's head. Where Copley has had the time to find Andy a new job while researching Quynh is beyond him. "There's more to the story than a kidnapped heiress."

"Human trafficking," Andy sighs, resigned to the bullshit that humanity keeps coming up with. She flips the file shut. "We'll take the job."

"Good, I'll send you some more details later. I'll make copies for everyone as well."

"Sounds great," Andy stretches and smiles at Booker. "So, Copley tells me you've been cooking again?"

*

_One night, while the ocean water seeps in and out of her lungs, she dreams of Andy._

_But this dream is different than the rest. It is a vision, and what she sees fills her with rage._

*

It is late when Andy leaves.

She gives Booker a lingering embrace and whispers "Don't worry so much," into the shell of his ear. "Focus on what you have going on here, okay? Don't worry about what I and the gang get up to, we'll be fine. Promise me you'll stop worrying."

There is grey in her hair. Six silver streaks that catch in the moonlight. Booker feels like the earth is slipping out from under him and there is nothing he can promise her that won't sound like a lie.

"I'll try."

She grins and ruffles his hair.

"Have a little faith, Book."

*

_"I'm uh, sure glad I found you miss!"_

_The man is a chatterbox, filling up the silence between them that she is trying so hard to maintain._

_"...And ya'know sonar is- I swear it's the greatest thing since sliced bread!"_

_She doesn't know what sonar or sliced bread is and if the man keeps speaking nonsense she is going to kill him before they ever make it to the shore._

*


	2. The Bullet

The modern world is big, frighteningly so, and incredibly loud in a way that the bottom of the ocean never was.

Quynh finds comfort in the noise. The constant start and stop of a stranger's conversation, the buzzing of electricity, car horns honking, and music playing from a stereo. Modern England is a world she can blend into, lost in a way that she can control and in a way that is entirely her own.

She does not feel the creeping of the ocean here, she does not feel its currents rolling across her body or the nibbling of hungry fish. There is so much _air_ and so much _light._ The ocean can not touch her here but some nights, when the weather is dark and gray, when the rain pitter-patters like ghosts knocking at her window, she can still hear the rolling of the waves.

*

The first thing she does is learn English.

Again.

The modern tongue evades her like a cat in the night but there are enough similarities to the old language that help her to get by. 

The second thing she does is learn how to use the internet ( _and what a marvelous thing it is.)_ The world is quite literally at her fingertips. She holds knowledge in the palm of her hands and feels all the more powerful because of it. 

She finds that there are wars because of course there are. If there is one thing humanity could never do without it is _war._ So Quynh starts there, researching the plights of history well into the wee hours of the night. She finds pieces of history that scream _Andromache_ and she prints them out with shaking fingers while her heart beats like a bird banging its head against the wiring of its cage.

It is raining outside and she can hear the ocean calling back to her, she can feel the fish biting at her face and Andromache is _there_ on the pages printed before her, in the palm of her hands, healthy and happy and painfully _alive._

That night, when Quynh sleeps, the ocean _roars_ her name and she is _white-hot,_ burning up from the inside out, clawing at her hair and face as if she can force herself to escape the memory of the sea and the Iron Maiden _._

She rolls out of bed or more realistically, falls out of it. She runs out of her room and into the shared bathroom of her hostel, barely making it to the cracked porcelain sink in time to vomit up what appears to be seawater and sand, dead fish, and algae. When she looks in the mirror she sees a bloated corpse gasping for breath.

"Hey, are you okay?"

There is a hand on her shoulder that she quickly shoves away. Quynh takes three deep breaths and when she looks in the sink there is only cracked porcelain. Her reflection shows nothing but supple flesh, apple-red cheeks and scared brown eyes. The girl next to her, Lucy or Lisa who lives across the hall from her looks worried.

"What?" Quynh snaps, turning the faucet on and letting the water run before shutting it off again.

"I-I said are you okay?"

Is she okay? Quynh isn't sure, but in two weeks, she _will_ be.

*

She finds Copley on the internet and naturally, she finds Booker.

*

Booker wakes to a crash and the sound of a violent struggle. 

Instinct has him reaching for his gun while his mind runs through all of the possibilities of what could be happening. He flattens his back against the bedroom wall, heart hammering in his chest.

Could it be a robbery? Someone from Merrick's lab coming to finish him, and thus Copley, off? Old enemies? Random chance? The possibilities are endless and the smart approach here would be to check the entirety of the house from top to bottom as quietly and as efficiently as possible, but one sound of pain from James is all it takes for Booker to throw caution to the wind.

He runs towards the source of the noise in an instant, pushing through the doors of Copley's office and abruptly freezing at the sight before him.

*

Quynh is standing over James with a gun shoved harshly beneath the soft flesh of his chin. There is a cut just above Copley's brow, a steady flow of blood is seeping down from it. 

Quynh smiles at him and it is all teeth and cold eyes. The last dream he ever had about Quynh involved her screaming and crying in the dark, begging helplessly for a God that never came.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Booker." She sends him a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes and digs the barrel of the gun hard into Copley.

He takes a step forward and Quynh shakes her had. "Ah, ah, ah, Booker. You know better than that, hand me your gun."

"Don't do it!" Copley shouts but Booker is already tossing it away.

"Don't hurt him," he says quietly but Quynh brings the gun down hard across the back of Copley's skull and he is out cold. Booker lets out a pained sound as if he has been struck himself and falls to his knees. 

"Now that that's out of the way," she hums, stepping over Copley and standing before Booker. "Tell me, where is Andy?"

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is gonna be three chapters long, not two as originally intended.


	3. The Bang

"How did you escape?" Booker asks, because the silence and the thought of Copley left unconscious, is starting to kill him.

They're on a private jet together, one that Quynh had forced Booker to charter with the use of Copley's contacts. They've been flying for twenty minutes now without one word spoken between them, and her silence is beginning to set him on edge. Anxiety forms a knot in his stomach. Booker tightens his hands into fists, fingernails cutting into the soft flesh of his palms. Copley's bound to wake up soon but there is no cell service in the air, so he can't know for sure when or if the man will be up and back on his feet again until the plane has landed and they are once again reunited with the godforsaken ground.

Quynh's sitting across from him. Her head rests listlessly against the seat like she's dozing in and out except the gun in her hand, aimed at Booker's crotch, is held in a tight and steady grip.

"I said-" Booker tries again, but Quynh's eyes snap to his and he feels gutted to the core.

Her voice is deadly calm and sharp as glass when she whispers "I  _ heard _ what you said. _ " _

It can take years for a single inch of iron to rust. Even longer, for the tides to move something so heavy and so dense as an iron casket. There were countless days she spent clawing at the inside of her prison, nails breaking and fingertips splitting open from the chipped rust and cracks of the metal. It took centuries before she could even make a dent. Then centuries more, for weak spots in the iron to begin to form. She tore her hands bloody, practically de-gloving them with each attempt she made to punch through the soft spots. Going mad from the pain of it and the images of Andromache, Yusuf, and Nicolo, moving on with their lives and leaving her behind. As if they never knew her, as if they could just forget about her. As if she meant nothing. Out of sight and out of mind. So much for promises of staying together. So much for promises of never giving up on finding each other.

_ How did you escape?  _ There is so much she could tell him about her time underwater. The man with the fishing boat, sonar, her bleeding, and broken hands, her lungs filling up with so much water that she could no longer scream. And the hate in her heart that helped her to walk on land with shaking and unsteady feet, putting one foot in front of the other until somehow she managed to not only walk but  _ run _ . 

_ One step at a time,  _ Andromache used to say.  _ Fighting is like a dance, you take it one step at a time. _

The ocean calls to her, it sounds a lot like Andromache.

Quynh shakes the memories from her head and says, "I dreamt of you in the army. And later, when your wife died. When your son died too." 

Booker stiffens in his seat. Quynh continues.

"Life is fleeting for a mortal. It's nothing but a passing glance for us..." She holds her free hand out in front of her, gazing at the blue veins that beat with life beneath pale skin. There are no scars on her body. No marks to show the time that she has spent at the bottom of the sea. 

"After all of this time, after all of that pain and misery, why would you attach yourself to another mortal again?" She curls her hand into a fist, letting it drop and rest across her thighs. "James Copley can not last long. You endanger what little time he has left, just by being around him."

Booker stands abruptly, towering over her, red-faced and with his hands bundled into fists, stiff with rage. "If anything happens to him I'll-"

"You'll do what?" Quynh laughs but there is no humor in it. None at all. The gun in her hand is made of cold hard steel, so is she. Quynh points it between his eyes. "Kill me? It wouldn't mean anything. Besides, I'd kill you before you even had the chance to. Now sit down and be silent. We still have a ways to go."

*

The plane lands in Berlin.

Quynh hails a taxi from the private airport ( _ marvelous thing it is,) _ and keeps Booker close with a gun tucked into his side, his cellphone held hostage in the breast pocket of her coat.

The file on Andy and the team's mission rests in the cradle of her lap. Pages upon pages of missing girls, held in giant metal containers, and shipped out on industrial boats into the cold and bitter sea. It makes her feel hollow. It makes her feel cold with anger to the point of hearing her own futile screams and feeling the burning sensation in her lungs, once again.

"Why are you doing this?" Booker asks because apparently, he can't leave well enough alone.

Quynh digs the gun hard into his side, deep between the ribs. He lets out a pained grunt.

The driver eyes them suspiciously from the rearview mirror but Quynh sends a smile his way. Full of teeth, slightly manic. The man quickly turns towards the road.

She flips the file closed, hiding the contents and covering the list of missing names as if she can hide them from her herself. Except, the roar of the sea grows louder with each breath that she takes. The smell of saltwater fills the air.

She answers Booker in her mother-tongue before imperialization took away the natural cadence and rhythm. It's a poetic language. A language of earth and unity, and she speaks the hurt of her heart to him, though he does not understand it. She says it again, but this time in the first language that Andy ever spoke to her. The exact language she used when Andy promised that she would never again walk the earth alone. The language that promised her love and family before dying and turning to ash.

Finally, in English, she tries again. "She gave up on looking for me, Booker."

"N-no," Booker shakes his head, brow furrowed. Face beginning to flush. "No. She never- it wasn't like that, Quynh. You have to understand, there were wars to fight, people to save-"

"There are always wars to fight and people to save, Booker." The file in her lap is a direct example of that and yet, Quynh is the one who was forced to save herself.

"She looked for you Quynh. Believe me, she looked for you for  _ centuries. _ We all did. Andy practically drove herself mad-"

"What would you know about madness?" She snaps, eyes wild, and appearing black from the low-light of the cab. The ocean is so  _ loud _ in her ears. She can't stand it. She wants to claw away at her own flesh. Tear and twist at her ears to make the loudness  _ stop. _ "What would Andy know? What would anyone-" 

"We mourned for you. We all-"

"I wasn't dead," A bitter laugh escapes from her. Bubbling up and out of her throat like liquid trapped in the lungs. The taxi-driver flinches in his seat and she switches to French, the old kind that only Booker is capable of understanding now.

"I did not need to be  _ mourned. _ I needed to be found." 

Booker shakes his head. It's futile to argue. Quynh's mind has already been made up, years before she ever made it out of the sea.

The cab takes a sharp turn into a shipping port. It looks abandoned, blocked off by a sturdy metal gate. 

"T-this is the address you gave me," the man says nervously.

Quynh hands him a stack of money. Some English, some American, and a few gold pieces from her time before. 

They step out of the car and the man speeds away without so much as a cautionary glance backward.

"Whatever it is you're planning, whatever it is you think you're about to do-"

Quynh un-pockets his cellphone, ignoring him completely. Her hands shake slightly, she curses them for trembling.

"What is your passcode?"

"Why?"

"What. Is. Your. Passcode?"

"Why do you need it?" Booker snaps as if he has any authority at all. Quynh takes the gun out and shoots him once in the leg, then once in the other. It cures the shake of her hands but only slightly. She takes a deep breath, the sound of the ocean is still there but quieter now, a gentle hum that serves as a reminder of why she is here. 

Booker crumbles to the ground.  _ "F-fuck!" _

"This is a big shipyard, Booker," she sighs, stepping over him. "I need to know which area they will be in."

He curls in on himself, moaning like a whimpering puppy. Rolling on the ground like his legs won't heal themselves in a matter of minutes. She rolls her eyes at him.

"Come now, Booker. Surely this can't be so hard? You've already betrayed them once. I'm simply asking you to do it again."

"Y-you don't know what you're doing, Quynh-"

She shoots him a third time, in the stomach. Booker turns pale from the blood loss, goes blank from the shock of it before blinking back to life and spitting out curses.

"What is the passcode?" 

"You think you want this," he grunts, holding his midsection together while the skin knits back in place. "But you don't-"

She shoots him again. And again. Until eventually, she has the numbers to get into his phone, and then, with his help, the right words and the right phrases to make Andromache give up her location.

Her hands shake as she reads the text message. She memorizes the boat number, the dock section, and the time at which Andromache plans to break into the ship and  _ attack.  _ Booker moans in pain at her feet. He clutches at her ankle, tugging at her legs and attempting to bring her down and closer to his place on the blood-stained ground.

"Andy isn't the same Quynh," he croaks, voice gurgling from the blood leaking in the back of his throat. "She can't- she can't heal anymore-"

She shoots him then, square between the eyes. 

The ocean roars her name.

_It sounds a lot like Andromache._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's looking like this is gonna be 4 chapters after all lol. (I originally planned for 2 but here we go!)


	4. The Dying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just casually leaves this here...

Waves lap against the sides of the port and Quynh can practically _feel_ the sea water and the salt, drifting in the air.

The mist settles in a film across her face. Her shirt sticks uncomfortably to the skin of her back. There are footsteps coming her way, so Quynh ducks beneath a steel beam and bleeds into the shadows cast by the metal crates and infrastructure.

She takes a deep breath, just to steady herself. Holds it down deep inside until her lungs begin to burn with a familiar ache. Quynh lets it out once the guards pass her by and then, because she can't forget the list of names in Copley's file _(the photographs and the faces)_ , she darts out after them.

Quick as a current, strong as an undertow, she uses their own weight against them and sends them crashing down onto their asses. One man unholsters his gun and she ducks just in time for the bullet to hit his counterpart. She twists the neck of the guard still conscious and then she tosses both of their bodies into the lapping maw of the sea.

*

Quynh finds Nicolo quickly after.

It is not a hard thing to do.

Not when you know where to look.

The man is nearly almost always at a vantage point. Up high like a bird, usually armed with a bow and an arrow, but time has changed even that, too. Now, Nicolo has a gun placed before him, long like a telescope with another, smaller, gun on his hip and a sword attached to his back. Quynh creeps up behind him from the shadows, quiet as she can possibly be, but her subtle presence is enough to make him _tense._

Nicolo flips onto his back lightning quick, gun at the ready, deadly even when caught by surprise. 

He takes one look at her and freezes. 

“Quynh?”

He stands abruptly, shoulders gone rigid with surprise. Nicolo re-holsters his gun. 

_"Quynh._ _”_

He says her name like a prayer and she remembers, back when it was just the four of them, after Lykon died and before the sea tore them apart, how Nicolo used to pray each morning and each night, filling the quiet with _Hail Marys_ and _Our Fathers._

“How did you get here?” 

Nicolo takes a step forward and Quynh mirrors him, stepping back into the shadows, biting the insides of her cheek to keep the sorrow bubbling up inside of her at bay.

Quynh wonders, suddenly, if Nicolo still prays? If he still believes in his God with the same passion that he once did? Even after so much time has come to pass? Even after the sea, godless in its power, tore them all apart? 

_Did you pray for me?_ She wants to ask him. _Did you read my burial rights over an indifferent sea?_

But it wont come out. None of it will. All of her rage and all of her sorrow, turns into water in the palm of her hands.

"Quynh?"

There is a frown on his face now. It sours up his features, makes him look troubled, worried, and every bit of his age.

Quynh brings her gun out from her coat pocket and strokes the cold metal. Nicolo's eyes narrow, he sees the spark of silver even from her place in the dark. 

Quynh caresses the gun and takes a deep breath. It is made of cold and hard steel, the same stuff that she is made of. 

“What are you doing, Quynh?” 

She aims her gun.

“I don't want to hurt you.” 

There is a look on Nicolo's face that reminds her of Yusuf and his terrible softness. Nicolo brings his gun back up slowly, as if to give her time to do something, anything else. Like throw the gun aside and change her mind, maybe? But this decision was made long before she ever reached the surface of the water. Long before she ever took her first painful steps on land.

The gun is made of cold, hard, steel.

 _It is the exact same stuff that she is made out of._

Except, her hands are shaking so badly that the barrel starts to waver.

“Put the gun down now, Quynh!”

Her hands shake.

The gun shakes.

Thankfully, her bullets do not.

*

It is Yusuf who first hears the gunshot, the painful thud and the sudden splash.

He stops abruptly in his tracks, listening and watching for any signs of movement.

He is supposed to be watching the perimeter and radioing in when the ships arrive _(any second now,)_ but he knows when Nicolo is in need of him. He can feel it in his bones.

Andromache's voice comes in through the static of his ear piece: ' _You hear that, Joe?_ '

 _"Yes,"_ he breathes. _"It came from the west end, that's-"_

_"Nicky's spot."_

He can see the boats already, coming in through the thick fog on the horizon. Guards of the shipyard are forming a crowd at the dock, readying for the drop-off with their guns at the ready.

Yusuf counts no more than twelve of them. Andromache can handle twice a dozen on a bad day, and with Nile at her side, they'll be more than okay but- the sight of her bleeding out is something that still haunts Yusuf's dreams. One wrong move and Andromache is done for, but Nicolo has still yet to radio in, and if he was okay, surely he would've said by now.

" _Nicky is-"_ he doesn't get to finish, not before Andy cuts in.  
  
 _"Be quick about it, Joe."_

*

Yusuf runs.

He takes out a few straggling guards here and there. First with his hands and then with his sword, doing his best to keep Andy and Nile updated on the comms, as well as keeping the sounds of violence down to a minimum. He's running to the area where he last saw Nicky when he spots her.

Glimpses of raven hair and pale skin, like a phantom figure weaving throughout the shipyard, blending in with the shadows, footsteps lost in the sound of the sea.

The form of her is so painfully familiar that for a moment, he thinks he must be dreaming. He practically trips over himself at the sight of her.

"Quynh?!" he's panting now, tired from the run, heart beating like a bird trapped in a cage. "Quynh-"

He turns a corner and _there_ she is. Beautiful. Radiant, like the day he first met her, powerful on horseback, the sun in her face, brown eyes shining like gold. Quick to anger and just as quick, to laugh and to smile and to embrace Yusuf as if she would never let him go.

Quynh turns to face him and-

"Quynh?-"

She shoots him in the throat before he has a chance to say another word.

It's a messy shot, one born from the shake of her hands. The gun feels heavier all of a sudden, like it's made of iron, like it's a casket pressing down, heavy on top of her. Quynh lets out a shaky breath as Yusuf falls to his knees, holding tightly to the wound in his throat. His eyes widen at the sight of Nicky's longsword at her hip. He's mouthing what she _thinks_ might be her name, but she can't be sure. All that she hears from Yusuf is a bloodied _gurgling_ and the sound of her own screams, enveloped by the cold indifference of the sea.

For a moment, she feels as though she is drowning.

_You think you want this, but you don't._

"Q-quh-quynh," he manages. "Q-"

She shoots him one last time, and just like Nicolo, she rolls his body over and into the sea.

*

  
The invasion is well under way.

Beginning prematurely, now that Andromache has realized that her men are out for the count.

Quynh slips easily into the mass of chaos. Hacking down vile men with the sword she took off of Yusuf's body _(it is so much easier to hold the curved blade in her hands than it was to balance Nicolo's longsword,)_ and pushing past the throng of poorly trained soldiers.

Quynh fights her way into the belly of the beast, slicing men left and right with little regard to where they land, following the sounds of shouts and teary-eyed sobs deeper and deeper into the ship, because wherever the heart of the fight is, Andromache is always bound to be.

*

Sure enough, Quynh finds Andromache in the middle of a fight, axe held in the strength of her hands, cutting down men and deflecting their bullets with ease.

Yes

_Yes._

Quynh has found Andromache, and the ocean roars so loudly in her ears that Quynh fears she will go deaf from it. A hitch catches in her breath. It threatens to turn into a sob as Quynh steps into the fight, unnoticed and unhindered. She carves a pathway for herself with the curve of Yusuf's borrowed blade. The men fall to the side of her in pieces and Quynh steps over their bodies without a second look. She can feel her heart beating in her chest at one thousand beats per minute. Beating, like an ocean wave, threatening to crest and crash and consume. 

Threatening to overtake her completely. 

_Andromache._

Her name bubbles up in Quynh's chest, it threatens to spill out of her in a scream.

Quynh is only a few feet away from her. There is just a handful of guards separating them from each other when suddenly, Andromache is blocked from her line of sight.

The new girl, the one she's dreamed of, Nile _(like the river,)_ steps in front of her, blade at the ready, already tarnished by blood and viscera.

"You must be Nile," Quynh says softly, eyes searching past her for a mere glimpse of Andromache, but by now the crowd has thickened again and she is lost in the fray. 

"And you must be Quynh," the girl says, staring fiercely at her, like a child facing their bedtime monsters. "Booker told me what you're trying to do here."  
  
"Did he now?" Quynh circles Nile slowly. "Then I suggest you get out of my way, Nile."  
  
"I'm not gonna let you hurt Andy. So uh, I suggest that _you_ get out of _my_ way."

"Charming."

The rage that Quynh tends to, unleashes itself in a fine arch of her blade.

Nile dodges the hit, she swings out in perfect form with a move that is painfully familiar to Quynh. No doubt, Andromache has been teaching her. And quite well, she notes. But still, Nile is young, and her strike, while perfect in form, is slightly too wide. Too open, and it leaves her vulnerable. Nile's torso is wide open for a side attack and the curve of Quynh's blade kisses her there, leaving a thin line of red against the white of her shirt.

It is a shallow cut. More of a warning than an actual wound, but surprisingly, the girl does not back down.

If anything, the cut makes her try _harder._

Nile snarls at her, she strengthens her stance, keeps her elbows tucked in to protect her sides and strikes again, but better this time. More controlled. She’s a quick learner and _that_ brings a smile to Quynh’s face. Had this been a different time, a different place, Quynh might have allowed herself to be charmed by the girl, but she is running out of time and the last thing Quynh needs is to deal with an overzealous child when Andromache is right _there_ beside them.

Quynh brings her sword up, intending to deliver a killing blow to the vulnerable side of Nile’s neck when suddenly Andromache darts in front of Nile with the handle of her axe raised high.

Quynh’s sword clangs against it, the sound echoes throughout the ship, her hands sting from the vibration.

 _“Enough,”_ Andy seethes. “Nile, leave.”  
  
“But-”  
  
“Go, find Joe and Nicky, help save the girls. I’ve got this.”  
  
“Andy- _”_ _  
__  
_“Go, Nile.”

She hesitates.

 _"Go._ That's an order."

Nile leaves as quickly as she came and now this, _this,_ feels right.

Quynh hadn’t realized that she’d been holding her breath until now, and she lets it out all out once, falling into Andromache with a shove that sends her reeling back against the hull of the ship.

Andy moves lightning quick, striking out with the blade of her axe but not quite making contact. Quynh parries each blow, stepping backwards and forwards. moving into Andy’s space just to step back out of it and successfully avoiding the axe swing to her head each and every time.

It is like a dance, one that Quynh knows well. One that she has stepped to a thousand times before.

One foot back. One foot forwards. One step after another and another. One swing, one parried blow. The hilt of the axe knocks against Quynh's chest and sends her reeling backwards.

 _"Quynh,"_ Andromache says her name like it hurts. Like the wind has been punched out of her chest and Quynh _seethes._ This pain is hers, _it is not Andromache's._

Quynh comes back down on Andromache. Harder, this time. Quicker, too, and striking out with her fists between swipes of the blade. She catches Andromache's cheek at one point with the brunt of her fists, before earning a similar punch in return. 

"Quynh-"

 _"Don't._ "

Quynh's blade falls mere inches away from Andromache's jugular. In turn, the sharp edge of Andromache's axe hovers mere inches from her own throat.

"Quynh," Andy pants her name and Quynh presses her blade closer, drawing a gasp from Andy, threatening to slice into her skin. "I-I'm so sorry Quynh I-"

Quynh shoves her, the axe falls away and clatters to the ground. 

_I'm sorry, Quynh._  
  
The ocean roars her name.

It screams and screams at her. All of the years spent rotting away, the flesh sloughing off from her bones, the fish nibbling at her eyes and mouth. The years spent thinking she was dead and the years spent after, dreaming of the ways she had been abandoned, forgotten, and mourned.

She spent centuries under water. Centuries in a constant state of death and decay, while Andromache and the rest of the guard _lived._

_I'm so sorry, Quynh._

The ocean deafens her. Rage blinds her.

Andromache lays still beneath her feet and Quynh brings the sword down in a perfect arch and oh, there it is, the hitch in Andy's breath, the blood that refuses to clot, the painful little sound she makes when Quynh steps over her and presses her hands against the seeping wound that she's inflicted.

Oh. _Oh._

There it is, then. Booker was telling the truth. Andy can no longer heal. Andy is no longer immortal.

Quynh laughs out loud then, and just as quickly, it turns into a shuddering sob that wracks throughout her body.

 _Andy, Andy, Andy,_ she can't stop herself from crying. Why? After all this time? 

" _Andromache."_

"Quynh," Andy croaks. Her hands reach out to touch Quynh's face with palms so frighteningly cold and stiff. "Don't cry."

There are no tears at the bottom of the ocean. No tears at all.

Quynh has forgotten what it feels like to have sadness physically pour from you and it _aches_.

"Shh-shh, don't. Don't cry-" Andy tries to wipe the tears away but her hands are shaking. Quynh leans over and cradles her head, gentle in a way that she thought she had forgotten how to be. Rocking her, as if she can somehow soothe the pain away for either herself or for Andromache.

"All living things have their tuh-time, Quynh." Her head falls back against the floor, no longer able to support itself. Blood seeps from her sides and forms a puddle beneath them.

Suddenly, the ocean is painfully silent _._ Suddenly, Quynh's rage leaves her feeling cold and breathless.  
  
 _You think you want this, but you don't._

"Andromache-"

"I'm glad It was you. If this is how it ends...I'm...I'm glad that it was you."

*  
  


Nile, Booker, Joe and Nicky, and a few friends from Copley's CIA days tear the shipyard apart from top to bottom. Donning scuba gear and sonar, to search the surrounding sea for signs of Andromache and Quynh.

It is still not enough to find her. In fact, it is not until days later, after calling local hospitals for Jane Does, that they find Andromache. 

*

"It's a miracle, really! I've never seen anything like it!" The nurse proclaims. "Even the doctors were baffled! It's almost as if her skin knitted itself up on its own."

Nile glances nervously at Joe who squeezes her hand in reassurance. Copley nods his head, humoring the nurse, making small talk with her in an attempt to make up for the rest of the Guard's lack of conversation. They're all too keyed up to entertain her. Itching to find Andromache, who is fine, by the sound of it. Maybe even more than fine.

"She's been sleeping it off ever since she was brought in."  
  
"Brought in?" Booker asks. Surprising everyone, even the nurse, who glances back at him with a surprised smile. Booker's presence amongst them, has unsettled the tentative balance they've formed since his banishment. But with Copley's help, and the more important need to find Andromache, the rules regarding his banishment have been temporarily pushed to the side.

"Yes, yes. Someone left her at the front doors of the hospital. Pity, we didn't get a name."

They glance at each other, a silent conversation expressed through Joe's worried brow, Nile's wide eyes, and Nicky's eagle stare.

"Well, here we are, Room 242. Would you like me to see if she's up?"  
  
"No," Copley smiles warmly at her, charming her in a way that Nile hopes will make her less likely to report them once they break Andromache out. "You've done more than enough. Thank you."

The nurse smiles at them before leaving. Nile takes a deep breath, before opening the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update but I rewrote this ending a couple of times and found myself losing motivation slightly! But as the majority of this ending was already written, I decided to finally post it!
> 
> The main idea for this ending is that Quynh/Andy both went into the final fight in order to gain closure from it! (It's not that I think they're necessarily violent ppl, but I think that they've been warriors/fighters for centuries, and a fight is what they needed for closure. It's what they know.)
> 
> I personally head canon Andy's loss of immortality as something related to her mental/emotional state. In the movie she's incredibly tired and still mourning Quynh so I wanted to write Quynh as bringing Andy's immortality back through their last fight together, whilst getting her own form of release/closure from all the anger and rage she's held at the same time.
> 
> Idk if I'll continue with this particular plot of the series, though I have a few ideas as to what Quynh is up to after these events!

**Author's Note:**

> This is slightly different from the last fic in that its more plot driven with stronger Quynh/Andy vibes vs part 1's Booker/Copley.
> 
> Hope ya'll can enjoy :3


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